Brain exercises are a good way to keep your mind sharp and stay on top of your game. Reports find that brain exercises, some as simple as face recognition or number matching, can go a long way to improve memory and delay the effects of long term memory loss.

We all forget things from time to time, whether it a misplaced set of car keys or where we parked the car after going shopping. These instances of forgetfulness pale in comparison with the slow eroding effect of Alzheimer’s disease or dementia that 5 million people in this country suffers from and the 6th leading cause of death according to the Alzheimer’s Association. Strengthening your brain through the use of specifically designed exercises, such as those from Homecare Phoenix providers and others can go a long way to improving your memory and prolonging your life.

Ways to Exercise the Brain

When you engage in physical exercise, you also exercise your brain. Remaining physically active, even in your older years improves the flow of oxygen to the brain. Physical exercise also has the added benefit of staving off the development of certain medical conditions such as diabetes and diseases of the heart, both of which lower your memory retention and place your health at risk.

In addition to physical exercise, maintaining a connection with your social network, be it friends and family, is important for helping you stay connected as you age and keep your mind sharp. A Harvard University School of Public Health study found that elderly people with active social lives have a slower rate of memory decline.

How to Start Improving Your Memory

If you want to begin improving your memory, start by getting up, getting active and getting involved with those around you. You may also consider different memory games and other devices that are designed to exercise your brain, regardless of your physical condition or level of activity. Spending a few minutes a day playing mind games, moving about and interacting with others can go a long way to helping you enjoy more of your life and slow the rate of memory loss and the negative effects of aging.

Services like those provided through MD Home Health, a Phoenix home health care service provider, can help those looking to improve their memory. MD Homecare Phoenix provides those services that help not only exercise the body but also exercise the brain.

In an article from the Harvard Medical School’s Harvard Health Publications “HEALTHbeat,”
the author states that its normal to forget things sometimes, and that “healthy people can
experience memory loss or memory distortion at any age.” Some “memory flaws”
can become more pronounced with age, but there’s nothing to worry about as long as those
memory problems do not become extreme and persistent and are “not considered
indicators of Alzheimer’s or other memory-impairing illnesses.” Seven normal memory
problems include: Transience, absentmindedness, blocking, misattribution, bias and
persistence. You can read more about them here.

So if your memory loss is considered normal, what can you do? Here are some memory
exercises you can practice on a daily basis.

1.) Play Games – You can improve your brain health and performance with brain games.
Lumosity.com was designed by neuroscientists to exercise memory and attention. When
you create an account at Lumosity.com you will be asked to “build your own personalized
brain training program,” an option which takes you through five areas — memory, attention,
speed, flexibility and problem-solving — and asks which aspects you want to improve. For
instance, under memory, you can click on “remembering names after the first introduction,”
“learning new subjects quickly and accurately,” “recalling the location of objects,” and
“keeping track of several ideas at the same time.”
[source: Howstuffworks.com, Lumosity].

2.) Use Mnemonic Devices – You can use association to remember facts and numbers. Just
create an image in your mind to help you remember a word or an image. For example:

3.) Use Acrostics – Does “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally” conjure up memories from
grade school? If you remember, it stands for Parenthesis, Exponents, Multiplication,
Division, Addition and Subtraction. Acrostics is where you can remember a new sentence
made out of the first letters of a set of words that you have to memorize in a certain order.

4.) Move Your Eyes – “Horizontal eye movements are thought to cause the two
hemispheres of the brain to interact more with one another, and communication between
brain hemispheres is important for retrieving certain types of memories.” [Melinda
Wenner, Livescience.com] So try moving your eyes from side to side for just 30 seconds
once a day to align the two parts of your brain and make your memory work more
smoothly.

5.) Drink in moderation – Still like to enjoy a glass of wine? That’s perfectly OK. Light to
moderate alcohol consumption can improve memory and cognition. It has been shown that
light to moderate drinkers can perform better on certain tests of memory and cognition
than nondrinkers and heavy drinkers [sources: Victoroff, Minerd]

What are some of your memory tricks? Please comment below and share!

For more information on memory exercises, visit us at MD Home Health. Start taking care of your memory now, before it’s too late.

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